Building Successful Pipeline During Pandemic and Economic Transformation
Have you ever wondered how and why customers buy your products or services? The thing is that consistent purchasing of goods or services is rarely accidental. Especially in today’s economic transformation and competition. Some of the successful telemarketing techniques could be helpful.
First, we have to define the terms of an opportunity and prospect:
- Prospect is any person in the world that has the money and authority to spend them but hasn’t yet the awareness or necessity to buy your product.
- An opportunity is a person who has the money and authority to spend them, and is aware of your product and services and has a necessity to buy.
- When customers want to make a purchase, it’s because of a successful marketing strategy.
Crucial steps in the building of the successful pipeline
The building of a pipeline is the process of a prospect’s or customer’s journey and steps from awareness about your product or service to purchase.
Sometimes customers skip the step of awareness and buy immediately because you hit the heart of the practical or emotional appeals or both of them. But this is rarely a thing to happen and you shouldn’t count on that too much.
The best way to build a successful pipeline is to create awareness and slowly compel customers to buy from you.
Some executives argue with the fact that not all markets have “easy” ways for building a pipeline and increasing ROI. The marketing practice disagrees with this statement.
The ways to make awareness and sales are tremendous in any market. There are the most well-known types of marketing your product: free publicity, PR, email marketing, telemarketing, banner advertising, co-registrations, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, direct mail, e-newsletter, advertising, radio, TV commercial, and the list goes on and on.
Some of these methods are cheap: SEO optimization, co-registrations, affiliate marketing, banner ads. All other forms of advertising are very expensive. And the most interesting fact is that sometimes these expensive methods don’t create positive ROI for your company.
The flaw of these methods of advertising is that they have a “delay” factor. Prospects or customers have time to think about your offer and spending of money when they observe these types of advertising.
Value of a delivery system in a pipeline
Many executives and stakeholders that want to build a successful pipeline forget one of the most fundamental truths in selling. These three things are crucial to know and understand when you build your marketing:
- Product;
- Pitch;
- Delivery system.
The product is the product or service you’re being promoted and sold. The pitch is the way you compel the prospect or customer to buy your product (e.g., talking, showing, writing).
And the delivery system is the way to deliver the pitch. Some of the most common delivery systems these days are the internet, phone, radio, TV, print, word of mouth, etc. Among these delivery systems, phone, TV, and radio are the best. TV and radio may be the most powerful systems, but they are very expensive.
Relevancy and price of successful pipeline
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For example, one minute of a TV commercial could cost you 40 000 dollars. And this is only for the average estimation. Some commercials could cost you over 200 000$ per 30 seconds in prime time.
TV and radio are great when you have a powerful brand, built by decades. If your brand is so famous like Coca-Cola, Adidas, Lacoste, etc, it could be the case. In other cases, you can lose all your money and even be bankrupt in one day.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no good predictions for TV, radio, print, and other delivery systems. Because of economic transformation and changing of human habits, predictions about TV, radio, and text are declining.
On other hand, a telemarketing campaign is far more economical and proven. Let’s look at what Forbes thinks about telemarketing. You can hit the audience with an effective inbound and outbound campaign and increase your ROI.
One of the most cost-effective ways to make awareness or sales economically for a small- or medium-sized business (SMB) is telemarketing. You can make so many cold calls as possible to build a successful pipeline and convert prospects into regular customers.
Mainly because there is almost no “delay” factor. When an agent speaks directly with the customer, the influence towards making a purchase is significantly powerful. The other great 5-star advantage of telemarketing is that after speaking with the real person it is more believable than other types of advertising.
How to build a pipeline with telemarketing
With telemarketing, the pipeline is significantly easy and fast to build. Because you speak directly with the alive prospect or customer, you can lead them through the processes of awareness, warm-ups, follow-ups, and sales.
For the start, have a calling list of prospects or customers. This list could be rented from list brokers or you already have your cold base of target audience. The relevant list is expensive so be cautious in buying those lists and from who you buy them.
Of course, you need a call center either in-office or in-house. Today’s economic transformation and restrictions move call centers towards in-house activity. Most of them work with the cloud because it’s easy, productive, and efficient.
After having a list for calling, you need to make cold calls with consistency and compliance to laws.
Set a benchmark for your sales plan. As an example, you need to set 10 000 sales per year. And then you understand how many sales you need to make in a month, week, or day.
Conclusion
Telemarketing is a far more cost-effective and profitable type of advertising than all others. Especially if you’re a small- or medium-sized business. Your pipeline will be effective and you can easily understand how many prospects you turn into customers.
You make sales or provide customer support via phone and understand how much ROI you generate.
Today’s technologies provide you with the cloud call center with all the tools of an in-office call center. Most of the successful companies switched to remote business because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And some companies want to maintain remote work as much as possible.
Author: Victoria Clark